The Sacraments and Acne
I was talking to someone the the other day who said that her faith life was like acne! I thought about that for a bit and decided that it was a most excellent analogy.
Don’t we all take our Faith life for granted? We look in the mirror every morning and see the same face staring back at us each day. Our skin is clear and smooth (well, that’s stretching it a bit in my case). And then occasionally, we wake up with a sore spot that has festered up from beneath the surface and is right out in front, right there in the mirror, too ugly to ignore! And there’s no getting it back under the surface, either. We have no option but to examine it every day until it gets to a point where we can pop it (blech)! And then we sport a lovely scab on our faces for a while and then a red spot as it slowly heals, until one day, we look into the mirror again and see that nice, smooth complexion that we’re comfortable with.
Our Faith lives DO work that way. Sometimes we have issues that we have no problem facing – kind of like putting on your make-up every morning and then cleansing it at night. We do these things as a natural part of our day, often thoughtless, so engrained they are into our habits.
And then that zit comes along to remind us that we still have work to do. We still have hidden things under the surface that we have to deal with. And sometimes we’re not willing to work on them unless they’re like a zit, staring us in the face (pun intended)!
Now to carry the analogy even further, there are things that can help keep the outbreak of acne to a minimum. But they take work: like eating the right foods (Eucharist), drinking enough fluids (Holy Water – not to drink, but to remind us of our Baptism and Confirmation). Occasionally, we need to do a mask, followed by a scrub (Reconciliation) as we slough off the top layer of skin to reveal the new skin underneath. And if we have a big outbreak, we might actually have to take drastic measures like doing all of the above at once (Anointing of the Sick).
If we’re blessed enough, we might have someone to help remind us to do these good things to our skin (Holy Matrimony, or in the case of Holy Orders, a Priest will have a Spiritual Advisor to hold him accountable). What it all comes down to is that in order to nurture the good skin that we’ve been given (Faith), we need to pay attention to what’s going on and do what we can to nurture it.
Thank God for the Sacraments! They can keep the outbreak of acne to a minimum!
Don’t we all take our Faith life for granted? We look in the mirror every morning and see the same face staring back at us each day. Our skin is clear and smooth (well, that’s stretching it a bit in my case). And then occasionally, we wake up with a sore spot that has festered up from beneath the surface and is right out in front, right there in the mirror, too ugly to ignore! And there’s no getting it back under the surface, either. We have no option but to examine it every day until it gets to a point where we can pop it (blech)! And then we sport a lovely scab on our faces for a while and then a red spot as it slowly heals, until one day, we look into the mirror again and see that nice, smooth complexion that we’re comfortable with.
Our Faith lives DO work that way. Sometimes we have issues that we have no problem facing – kind of like putting on your make-up every morning and then cleansing it at night. We do these things as a natural part of our day, often thoughtless, so engrained they are into our habits.
And then that zit comes along to remind us that we still have work to do. We still have hidden things under the surface that we have to deal with. And sometimes we’re not willing to work on them unless they’re like a zit, staring us in the face (pun intended)!
Now to carry the analogy even further, there are things that can help keep the outbreak of acne to a minimum. But they take work: like eating the right foods (Eucharist), drinking enough fluids (Holy Water – not to drink, but to remind us of our Baptism and Confirmation). Occasionally, we need to do a mask, followed by a scrub (Reconciliation) as we slough off the top layer of skin to reveal the new skin underneath. And if we have a big outbreak, we might actually have to take drastic measures like doing all of the above at once (Anointing of the Sick).
If we’re blessed enough, we might have someone to help remind us to do these good things to our skin (Holy Matrimony, or in the case of Holy Orders, a Priest will have a Spiritual Advisor to hold him accountable). What it all comes down to is that in order to nurture the good skin that we’ve been given (Faith), we need to pay attention to what’s going on and do what we can to nurture it.
Thank God for the Sacraments! They can keep the outbreak of acne to a minimum!
posted by Dixie @ 6:39 PM
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